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not really. i mean it is all technically connected, but where you start as a class makes a pretty big difference in the early game. and it seems like that at first, that all the nodes are minor and uninteresting, but that couldn't be further from the truth. in terms of the passive tree, it's all about paths: paths to the big keystones that can define a build and what you take along the way. things like blood magic (which removes mana), chaos inoculation (sets your hp to 1 and makes you immune to chaos damage), resolute technique (removes the ability to crit, makes your attacks never miss) and dozens more are extremely important nodes, so the passive tree becomes about building toward those crazy combinations that can make some really interesting (or horribly gimping) shit happen.

The fact that it's called a passive tree doesn't mean it's any less boring. I'm not saying they lied to me or anything, it's called a passive skill tree and...it's full of passives, i expected it. That still doesn't make it very fun.

I think you're overlooking the fact that you need a lot of levels to reach those cool passives like blood magic and chaos inoculation. To get to the chaos inoculation for example, you will have MANY level ups where all you do is get 10 extra intelligence or some boring passive like that and after i get inoculation, again "wasting" skills to get to blood magic. I could go 10 level ups in a row with nothing interesting about them, barely making my character any better, interesting or fun. You see my point? Each level up should be cool, especially at lower levels but it's not the case.

Don't wanna sound so negative, the game is good, but i just think that a different level system, maybe even more traditional like diablo 2, would have made it an awesome game.

At times i honestly couldn't tell if i was reading a real forum or it was all a big parody of hardcore gamers.
Any criticism ends with dozens of replies along the lines of "NO, go play diablo 3!".

I like PoE a lot, but so for this is my biggest annoyance with it. I can't use anything but party chat, because people literally never stop talking about Diablo 3 and how shitty it is. I get it, that's why you're not playing it, you can stop now. I get that it's an ARPG and Diablo is and ARPG and you think one is better than the other, but we can stop talking about it once in a while. It's the same thing with people in shooters that aren't CoD constantly talking about CoD.

Anyway. Love the environment and atmosphere in PoE; appropriately dark and menacing, reminds me of the world of Conan a bit. The armor/weapons are cool too because they're not over the top at all and rather dingy and ruined looking a lot of the time which makes sense considering you're a bunch of exiles, wanderers, and primitive folk living in a super harsh environment.

I love that the three big recent ARPGs have taken such a different approach to skills and levelling. On one hand, Diablo 3 hands out new toys every time you level and encourages you to experiment with them freely. In Path of Exile each level is likely uneventful- just another small step to a larger vision of a build. Torchlight 2 treads a middle path, in which the player works towards a larger build but levels along the way often come with a new skill, passive, or a notable upgrade to an existing skill.

It's a feast for fans of the genre. We should all be able to find something very much to our taste.

The fact that it's called a passive tree doesn't mean it's any less boring. I'm not saying they lied to me or anything, it's called a passive skill tree and...it's full of passives, i expected it. That still doesn't make it very fun.

I think you're overlooking the fact that you need a lot of levels to reach those cool passives like blood magic and chaos inoculation. To get to the chaos inoculation for example, you will have MANY level ups where all you do is get 10 extra intelligence or some boring passive like that and after i get inoculation, again "wasting" skills to get to blood magic. I could go 10 level ups in a row with nothing interesting about them, barely making my character any better, interesting or fun. You see my point? Each level up should be cool, especially at lower levels but it's not the case.

Don't wanna sound so negative, the game is good, but i just think that a different level system, maybe even more traditional like diablo 2, would have made it an awesome game.

as arathain mentions, it's about the larger picture. if you're looking for that big payoff every level, poe probably won't hold your attention for very long.

It's all about the big picture, exactly. It's the anticipation. The carrot that keeps you going. It's the knowing that just two more levels and I get <insert killer passive here>. Some of those keystones are absolute character mutators that change the entire way you play the game.

For instance; building a marauder I go for resolute asap, then down to unwavering and around to the one that converts evasion to armor, then head for blood magic. By that time I've also built up enough accuracy that I can unspec resolute and pickup the +crits instead. This takes me somewhere into the 40's.

It's all about the big picture, exactly. It's the anticipation. The carrot that keeps you going. It's the knowing that just two more levels and I get <insert killer passive here>. Some of those keystones are absolute character mutators that change the entire way you play the game.

For instance; building a marauder I go for resolute asap, then down to unwavering and around to the one that converts evasion to armor, then head for blood magic. By that time I've also built up enough accuracy that I can unspec resolute and pickup the +crits instead. This takes me somewhere into the 40's.

precisely. my latest character is a bow marauder, and i spend the entire first act (until around lvl 36 or so) using a 2h weapon, melee skills and mana, all while building toward eventually using a bow. once i got the right passives to support my int/dex skills (and gear/gems) i made the switch. that works for me, but i understand playing through what amounts to the entire game on one difficulty before /actually/ playing your build might turn some people off.

It really is a character strategy game as much as anything else. And character development happens through more than just the passive tree, since swapped skill gems, choice of weapon (and any class can use any weapon, if you meet the stat reqs) can have a dramatic effect. I just came across a bit of armor with the right set of linked slots that allowed me to really turn a corner with my build - it just didn't come with a magical ding that signalled my arrival. Just the satisfaction of a plan coming to fruition.

well the lack of an auction house fits with the vision of poe. it's supposed to a tough game, with an emphasis on survivalism. they really want to play up the whole exile angle, etc. not sure if it's the best choice, but they are committed to it.

I get the point, it just seems like a fruitless principle. Now community members are coming out with tools for spidering the forums and setting up trades that way, and so the community is filling this gap on its own. The fact is that gear is a big part of the game, the game allows you to trade, and so leaving out in-game facilitation of linking buyer and seller doesn't amount to a substantive change, it's just being a nuisance in order to make an empty point.

I get the point, it just seems like a fruitless principle. Now community members are coming out with tools for spidering the forums and setting up trades that way, and so the community is filling this gap on its own. The fact is that gear is a big part of the game, the game allows you to trade, and so leaving out in-game facilitation of linking buyer and seller doesn't amount to a substantive change, it's just being a nuisance in order to make an empty point.

It was the same in D2, but thats an important point. It wasn't the fact that you could trade in D3 that was the problem, it was that it was to easy to trade.

To recant my previous post here: I switched from a witch to a ranger, and now I am having a blast, even during leveling. The game is incredibly fun right now, playing a class that's much more hands-on. Level 23 and rising fast. If anyone fancies some co-op, I'm "Faldrath" there as well.

Had a lot of fun with PoE. I leveled a Marauder to lvl 60 and an elemental Bowtemplar to lvl 75. But once you reach level 70 or so you really start to feel the grind as the content ends around 63. From there on it is either grinding docks/lunaris all day long or doing maps that rarely drop.

It is also around lvl 70 where you feel that your character progression has hit a brick wall and you desperately need better gear to improve. Gear that unfortunately never drops (even 5links are very rare) or that you are forced to trade IF you got the currency(just like in D3).

It's still an open beta tough and new content has been promised. So I'll be looking out for that.

To recant my previous post here: I switched from a witch to a ranger, and now I am having a blast, even during leveling. The game is incredibly fun right now, playing a class that's much more hands-on. Level 23 and rising fast. If anyone fancies some co-op, I'm "Faldrath" there as well.

Are you playing HC?

The character I've been having most fun with is a staff-wielding melee templar, around level 29 atm. Leap slamming, sweeping, and lots of running around dodging spells in between. Feels a bit like hotline miami with updated graphics, tbh.

The character I've been having most fun with is a staff-wielding melee templar, around level 29 atm. Leap slamming, sweeping, and lots of running around dodging spells in between. Feels a bit like hotline miami with updated graphics, tbh.

No, SC. I'm in Brazil and I have enough connection issues to avoid playing HC - don't want to lose my toon to a lag spike.

My ranger is 32 now, and she's immensely entertaining. Once you unlock Blood Magic (pay for skills with health instead of mana), my Lightning Arrow with Life on Hit and Lesser Projectiles (splits it into 3) becomes a blue storm of AoE death, since the Life on Hit easily covers the health cost of the arrows. Elites and bosses are still tricky since my single-target DPS isn't very good, but I haven't faced anything unsurmountable so far. Died a few times to Act 2's final boss, but that was it.

I've got five characters on hardcore now, all in the level 30-35 range. Everything in my deck but a duelist, and tending toward the melee side of playstyle variations. I'm not building a character so much as building a team.

My overall level progression is obviously slow, but that seems all for the best. From what I hear, Merciless difficulty seems overly punishing for melee types, so not sure I even care to reach any endgame play. Being able to share gear across all the characters means I stay reasonably well equipped, since almost anything I find of quality will be useful for *someone*. And I'm honestly having fun playing through similar content with very different styles. If I continue to go this slow, there may be an act 4 before I run out of content.

Fiddling with multiple character types, and playing out different build concepts in parallel. Seems almost like the game was designed to be taken this way.